Improbable Research

Colltales adventures into the story of color preferences in the insane, jumping off from our excursion in that far-off land:

There are many reasons why the 1931 research “Color Preference in the Insane,” by Dr. Siegfried Katz, was important. At the time, for example, lobotomy was still an accepted treatment for schizophrenia. In fact, the procedure involving cutting nerve fibers from the frontal lobe of the brain, where emotions are generated, would grant the 1949 Nobel Peace prize to Portuguese doctor Egus Moniz.

So kudos to the good doctor Dr. Katz, working at the New York State Psychiatric Hospital, for having chosen alternative ways to make mental patients “less agitated and aggressive”….

They found no “clear-cut relationship between color and psychiatric illness,” and even questioned the use of color in diagnosis. And that was that. For all they cared, those patients who showed preference for some colors over others were, in all likelihood, well, insane.

As for us, color us lazy but never crazy for keeping going back to tap into the Improbable Research site’s bottomless pit of humorous but dead serious scientific tales. Let us praise and thank those enlightened folks and their off-kilter take on things that never cease to tickle us.

Maggie Koerth-Baker, Boing-Boing’s ace science observer, is doing a series of essays about “My Favorite Museum Exhibit”. The Bishop of Durham’s rectum, on which we have spent an inordinate amount of time and space, because it has a curious back story, is there. (Well, actually, the Bishop’s bottom, what’s left of it, is in the Hunterian Museum, in London. The photo here, from the museum, shows the rectum at its best.)

So, too, is the ”Arab Courier Attacked by Lions”, which resides at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. That item reminds us of another of my favorites: Tippoo’s Tiger, at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Tipu’s Tiger is a mechanical toy built for Sultan Tipu (which you’ll sometimes see spelled as Tipoo or Tippoo) of Mysore, India some time in the 1700s. It re-creates a roughly life-size tiger mauling a British military man, with accompanying horrendous noises. The mechanism is old and until recently had long been in disrepair. The museum recruited a highly skilled and appropriately cranky man to repair the mechanism (I once tried to interview him, thus learning about the crankiness).

The museum web site has extensive descriptions of Tipu’s Tiger. These videos, below show the toy, and go into some of the story of the restoration.

BONUS: The book Tipu’s Tigers, by Susan Stronge of the V&A Museum

SPECIAL BONUS: The museum made a Tipu’s Tiger app for the iPhone and iPod touch, which you can download free (and which plays “God Save the Queen” as the tiger mauls the soldier):

We receive, one way or another, many press releases, pitches, and other communications from People Who Can Explain Everything, or from publicists for People Who Can Explain Everything, or from people who have encountered press releases, pitches, and other communications from People Who Can Explain Everything. Here are two from the pile we encountered today:

1. A press release from Case Western Reserve University. It begins:

Radical Theory Explains the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, Challenges Conventional Wisdom

CASE WESTERN RESERVE THEORIST DEVELOPS INCOMPARABLE MODEL THAT UNIFIES PHYSICS, CHEMISTRY, AND BIOLOGY

News Release: Thursday, January 26, 2012 — CLEVELAND – The earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects—for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA—are animate, that is, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of science and medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

Erik Andrulis [pictured here], PhD, assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology, advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript “Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life,” published in the peer-reviewed journal, Life….

2.  This trailer for a documentary film called The Master Palindromist. The producer says this is “A documentary film about a Master Palindromist honing his reversibility skills in an effort to reassess his life, and possibly change the world. Produced and Directed by Michael Rossi.”

To these people People Who Can Explain Everything, and to all People Who Can Explain Everything, we say: Thank you, and good luck to you!

(Thank you to Ian Sample and Gus Rancatore, respectively, for bringing these particular People Who Can Explain Everything to our attention.)

The New York Public Library web site has a tool that lets you take stereo photos, and convert them into a single moving, apparently 3-D, image. An example is shown here. They invite you to:

Create and share animated GIFs and 3D anaglyphs using more than 40,000 stereographs from The New York Public Library.

[via metafilter]

Investigator Virginia Cox sent us this note:

If you, like me, like dinosaurs, you have been following the adventures of paleontologist Jack Horner. He is my hero. Can you or one of your readers tell me, though, if this is a hoax?

A newspaper called the Bozeman Magpie has this report: “Famous Paleontologist Jack Horner Marries 19-year-old MSU Student”

I looked on Jack Horner’s page on Wikipedia. The very first thing it says is: ”John ‘Jack’ R. Horner (born June 15, 1946) is an American paleontologist who discovered and named Maiasaura, providing the first clear evidence that some dinosaurs cared for their young.”

Those words feel a lot different in light of this new romantic news.

Then I looked up the name of the young lady, and found a facebook page. It says she is married to “John Horner“, and shows a wedding photo of her and her husband. It lists the “people who inspire Vanessa”. There are: “Dinosaurs, John Wayne, Barney, and John R. Horner”. Then something really strange. Under the heading “Activities” it lists only one thing: “Don’t dump a girl, and then get mad when she finds someone else”.

Did the master get tired of looking for old things, and instead go hunting for young ones? Or is this a hoax? Or am I crazy? Now I’m wondering if his name really is “Horner” — it seems a little too descriptive.

If anyone can help answer Investigator Cox’s letter, please do.